The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld a $5,000 settlement awarded to a Santa Maria senior citizen couple, Hope and Javier Bravo, and more than $1 million in attorneys’ fees stemming from a 2006 civil rights lawsuit that the city fought for nearly a decade.
According to court records, the opinion was filed on Jan. 12, however it was kicked back down to the federal district court in Los Angeles—where it was originally filed—and the settlement was finalized on Feb. 25.
In addition to the Bravos’ settlement with the city, their attorneys will receive a little more than $1.1 million.
The case stems from an April 26, 2006, SWAT raid on the Bravos’ home in Santa Maria that involved officers from the Santa Barbara and Santa Maria police departments, and the Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo county sheriff’s offices.
During the raid, officers blasted out the front door locks with a shotgun, smashed a glass door, and fired several flashbang grenades into the house, according to the original complaint.
Officers rushed into the house screaming and pointing loaded weapons at everyone, the lawsuit states, including the Bravos and their 8-year-old granddaughter, who is identified as E.B.
Javier Bravo was restrained to the point where he needed surgery, and the raid caused him to suffer heart attack-like symptoms, the lawsuit states.
Police were searching for the couple’s son, Javier Bravo Jr., who was implicated as being involved in a drive-by shooting that occurred five days earlier.
There was just one problem: He was already in state prison, having been serving time for the previous 10 months on a charge of receiving stolen property, according to the Bravos’ attorney Donald Cook.
Cook contends that the SMPD discovered that Javier Jr. was in prison shortly before the raid but carried through with it anyway.
The Bravos sued and settled with the Santa Barbara Police Department for $360,000, according to court documents. The cases against Santa Barbara county and San Luis Obispo county sheriff’s departments were both dismissed.
Court documents show that a unanimous jury verdict awarded the Bravos $5,000 in damages. However the city appealed for 10 years, during which time attorneys’ fees kept accumulating.
Cook estimated that “literally hundreds of thousands of hours of attorney time” were spent on this case.
“The whole thing happened because the SMPD, inexcusably, knew Javier Jr. could not have been involved,” Cook told the Sun. “It would have been a wiser course to acknowledge the liability and get the case resolved a lot earlier. The case drags on and the attorneys’ fees keep going up and up.”
But city taxpayers aren’t exactly on the hook for the money. Santa Maria attorney Kristine Mollenkopf told the Sun that the settlement will come from the city’s insurance.
The city could have appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but Mollenkopf said it was out of the city’s hands as the insurance company didn’t wish to go any further.
According to Mollenkopf, the city appealed the settlement because the attorneys’ fees were too high compared with what the Bravos were awarded.
“The city shouldn’t be liable for attorneys’ fees when there’s only a $5,000 verdict against the city,” Mollenkopf told the Sun. “That type of success doesn’t warrant more than $1 million in attorneys’ fees.”
In addition to denying the city’s appeal, the 9th Circuit Court also denied the Bravos’ request for a new trial, according to court documents.
This article appears in Mar 3-10, 2016.